Taiwan Films Surge At Local Box Office

Back in January, I wrote about Taiwanese audiences flocking to see You Are The Apple Of My Eye, a local pic Fox released to the tune of $13 million last year. Another local title I noted had scored with moviegoers was Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale, an action drama set during the Japanese rule of Taiwan. According to figures just released by the motion picture arm of the Government Information Office, those films, combined with Jump Ashin!, helped generate $48.2 million in 2011 to give Taiwanese films a 17.5% market share – an increase of 316% over the previous year. Even more eye-popping, it’s a more than 10,000% increase over 2001, when just 13 Taiwanese films were released. The hikes are being attributed in part to the maturation of the government funding scheme and a new breed of talent. Te-Sheng Wei directed and wrote Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale which Well Go USA is releasing this week. Giddens Ko wrote and directed comedy/drama You Are The Apple Of My Eye. Sports drama Jump Ashin! was directed by Yu-Hsien Lin from a script by Kuo-Kuang Wang. Taiwan also recently invested in Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi and Jackie Chan’s Zodiac.